SDF talk

Social Democratic Federation.The Social Democratic Federation / Social Democratic Party, Tunbridge Wells Branch (1886-1911)The  Tunbridge Wells  Branch of the Social Democratic Federation was formally established in the summer of  1886 . Many of its earliest members had previously been active in the town’s  Tunbridge Wells Secular Society secularist  and radical groupings, including  David Geer  and  Tom Jarvis , while William Willis-Harris had been previously associated with secularists in London. The SDF in  Tunbridge Wells  continued the secularist agitation of the town’s branch of the National Secular Society into the Twentieth Century. During the spring, summer and autumn it held many of its meetings outdoors at the  Tunbridge Wells Common, Lime Hill Road and Wood Street (off  Camden Road ). The branch grew to be one of the Federation’s strongest. Unsurprisingly it attracted opposition from both Tory and Liberal politicians, and was blamed for a series of arson attacks in  1886  and  1887 , as well as several instances of public disorder, especially in organising marches of unemployed workers. Its members, many of whom were active trade unionists, suffered from blacklisting in retaliation.In the early 1890s the branch’s level of activity fell away as a result of some leading members being forced to leave town. Revival happened in the latter part of the decade. In 1897 David Geer was elected as councillor for the East Ward, one of two socialist councillors (the other being H C Lander of the Fabian Society) elected that year. Two further SDF councillors, William Bournes and James Milstead, were also elected in the next two years, together with other Labour and Fabian councillors. These councillors were strong supporters of municipally owned utilities, including electricity and telephones, and unsuccessfully campaigned for the construction of municipal housing. Trade unionists in the branch took leading roles in the town’s trades’ council and allied Labour Representation Committee and some supported the women’s suffragist movement.    The branch’s opposition to the Boer War allowed Conservative opinion to portray the SDF and other local socialists as unpatriotic, and this was largely responsible for Geer and Milstead not being re-elected. However, the branch flourished in the first decade of the Twentieth Century and played a leading role in building the socialist movement throughout Kent and Sussex under the auspices of the South Eastern Counties Federation of Socialist Societies, working closely with branches of the Independent Labour Party. In 1909 the Social Democratic Federation was renamed the Social Democratic Party though this did not affect the organisation.In 1911 the Social Democratic Party joined with dissident branches of the  Independent Labour Party  and a number of independent socialist societies to form the  British Socialist Party  and the Tunbridge Wells Branch therefore became a branch of the new organisation.The Social Democratic Federation had a meeting hall capable of holding 200 people from 1886 until 1888 in the area between Quarry Road and the old Central Goods Station and the Social Democratic Party leased rooms in Upper Grosvenor Road from September 1909 until 1911.Note: this short piece is taken from an ongoing substantive piece of research by the author.

Henry Myers Hyndman, the future leader of Socialism, was at this date as a young man of twenty-one, an undergraduate of Trinity College, and a member of the Sussex County Eleven.